There is a continuing discussion and investigation of the idea of social isolation and community engagement in a variety of texts and studies.  One of the original works  was Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community.

The general belief, supported by many of Putnam’s cited studies, is that people are less connected or engaged in their communities.  The example, highlighted by Putnam’s title, is that while more people are bowling in America, fewer belong to bowling leagues.  The concern is being less connected may lead to loneliness and other issues.

While written broadly about our society, this opens the door for discussion about how this larger social trend may  impact our learners in our courses.  If society is less connected, is it also more lonely?  And then, if our students are less connected, are they potentially more lonely?

In 2008, researchers John Cacioppo, and William Patrick published their findings on loneliness (Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection) which identified:

• The lonely sleep less well and less efficiently.
• The lonely can’t think as clearly.
• The lonely were more likely to describe a gadget anthropomorphically and the lonely were more likely to believe in the supernatural (e.g., God, angels or miracles), and believed in the supernatural more when they were feeling lonely.
• Lonely people had higher levels of chronic inflammation, a condition associated with heart and artery disease, arthritis, Alzheimer’s and other illnesses.

The inability to sleep well and think clearly has impact on ability to learn.  (Although, tongue in cheek, many college freshman may believe it was a supernatural power, not studying, that allowed them to pass their first year final exams.)

I commented on Cacioppo’s book on another blog, and his book (and indeed much of his academic work) reinforces the need for connection.  It also illustrates that being alone is not the same as being lonely.  In medical education, this becomes important:  we typically educate future clinicians in a cohort (a social network) and then send them out to rotations (isolation) and expect them to learn in both environments.

Cacioppo and others discuss the  General Social Survey (GSS) and their findings about our discussion networks.  The GSS surveys the number of people “with whom you discussed matters that are important to you.” and the data reports the number of people we identify is smaller than it was the previous studies.

The concern is, are we becoming more isolated? Does this mean our students are more isolated?

It was Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin and Matthew Brashears who wrote Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks (at JSTOR) and in their abstract write:

The data may overestimate the number of social isolates, but these shrinking networks reflect an important social change in America.

This brings us to the Pew Internet and American Life project and a new spin to  with their November study of Social Isolation and New Technology.  The Pew study believes there are issues with the GSS survey methodology, but setting that argument aside for now, Pew researchers are asserting that

Our findings suggest that the extent of social isolation in America is not as high as has been reported through prior research.  Today, the number of Americans who are truly isolated is no different, or at most is only slightly higher than what it was 30 years ago. Few people have no one with whom they can discuss important matters, and even fewer have no one who is especially significant in their lives. The more pronounced social change, since 1985, has occurred in the size and diversity of Americans’ core networks

So how are we connected?  Have we replaced personal connections with technology based connections?  According to Pew:

People’s mobile phone use outpaces their use of landline phones as a primary method of staying in touch with their closest family and friends, but face-to-face contact still trumps all other methods. On average in a typical year, people have in-person contact with their core network ties on about 210 days; (emphasis mine) they have mobile-phone contact on 195 days of the year; landline phone contact on 125 days; text-messaging contact on the mobile phone 125 days; email contact 72 days; instant messaging contact 55 days; contact via social networking websites 39 days; and contact via letters or cards on 8 days.

The interesting consideration is blending these ideas with the Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies (2009) which concluded:

“blended” instruction – combining elements of online and face-to-face instruction – had a larger advantage relative to purely face to face instruction or instruction conducted wholly online.

Perhaps the success of blended learning is that is expands the number and kind of social connections to both in person and technology based networks.

Note: Ann and I leave our campus for Austin, Texas to present at the ELI Annual Conference “Learning Environments for a Web 2.0 World”, Our presentation is Thursday:

Leveraging Web 2.0 curiosity with traditional faculty mandates for research, teaching, and service led to an innovative collaborative opportunity. This session demonstrates how a Web 2.0 research project used a university intramural grant to fund a podcasting research project that brought together faculty from separate colleges and diverse departments within the university. The stated goal was to research and improve podcasting learning outcomes; the hidden goal was to build cross-departmental relationships for the future. Be prepared to participate as session presenters divide the room to resemble a typical campus and then brainstorm solutions to do this on your campus.

Tags: blended learning, isolation, learning, online education, pew, research

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 11:23 am and is filed under Fritz writes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.